In an exclusive interview with All Things Digital’s Ina Fried, Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller explained that white version needed protection from UV rays, and that it was identified and solved when they were perhaps working on the white iPad 2.

“It was challenging. It’s not as simple as making something white. There’s a lot more that goes into both the material science of it–how it holds up over time…but also in how it all works with the sensors.”

“We thought we were there a year ago, or less than that, when we launched the iPhone 4, and we weren’t.”

“We obviously think about this in a generic way because you have a white iPad.”

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